The Beatles and the Rickenbacker guitars
The Beatles had Rickenbacker guitars and Rickenbacker guitars had the Beatles. Would The Beatles have had their great success without the Rickenbacker guitars? Of course they would! Whether Rickenbacker guitars would have had their great success without the Beatles is an interesting question about which we can only speculate. A more valuable and interesting pursuit would be to explore the importance of Rickenbackers in the music of the Beatles. We will never get a chance to know for sure out so let´s drop the speculations here and now! Instead let us look back! In my opinion there has never been a Rickenbacker - Artist symbiosis like the one between John Lennon and hisRickenbacker 325. 'John Lennon´s '58 Rickenbacker 325' The Beatles went to Hamburg in August 1960. John had seen guitarist Jean "Toots" Thielemans, George Shearing´s Quintet, playing a Rickenbacker 325 in 1959. He immediately became interested in the guitar. One day John and George went to Steinway´s in Hamburg (local research suggests that the guitar may have been acquired from the nearby Musikhaus Rothoff). George bought a Gibson amplifier and John bought the "guitar of his dreams", a Rickenbacker Capri 325 in natural finish. It´s quite amazing to see that the connection between "Toots" and the Capri 325 began as early as 1958! When bringing the question up about the cost of the amplifier and the guitar George Harrison recalls: - I think we bought them on "a knocker". One pound down and the rest when they catch you. He adds: - I don´t know if we ever paid them off, but.....?? 1960. John Lennon in Hamburg on a fairground, near the Reeperbahn, called "Heiligengeistfeld". His guitar is still unmodified. In Hamburg John Lennon soon started to modify his guitar. The first alteration he made was to remove the TV-style control knobs and replace them with Hofner types. Through the years he was using both Burns and Hofner type knobs. It seems he was either constantly losing them or perhaps could not decide which type were more appealing. There is a picture on p.45 in "The Vox Story" (Petersen & Denny, 1993) showing John´s guitar with only three Hofner type knobs. After returning to Liverpool he replaced the Kauffman Vibrola tailpiece. He bought a Bigsby unit from salesman Jim Getty at Hessy´s music store in Liverpool. Also a new Bigsby bow-tie bridge was mounted. The guitar was put on the counter and the modifications were made while still being in the store. Perhaps the reason for this was that the Kauffman Vibrola rarely returned to pitch and threw the instrument out of tune. It would appear that the Bigsby was considered as a more reliable vibrato tailpiece. Unfortunately the Bigsby bridge was somewhat oversized for the smaller 325 body. It was probably the pickguard that prevented it from fitting properly or perhaps it was improperly installed. Pictures of the guitar reveal that the low E or 6th string was out of alignment and actually was outside the fretboard and off the neck from somewhere around the 14th fret and higher.(see "Imagine John Lennon" by Yoko Ono 1988, picture on p. 73.) ''' '''It would also seem that the middle pickup was disconnected.One plausible reason for this altered wiring might have been to achieve greater difference in tone between the different pickup-switch positions. Most of the pictures of John playing this guitar reveal that the pickup-switch is set to the mid-position. An up or down position would result in a more distinct change in tonal characteristics. Whether this was a deliberate action on John´s part or not, is not known. After all John Lennon did not have the reputation of being the most technically minded person. Please note that the fact that his middle pickup was disconnected has not, to my knowledge, been verified by John himself in any interviews. Maybe the reason simply was that the pickup had been damaged from being hit hard a countless number of times, while John was strumming wild (or damaged because of some other reason), and he just left it that way. After all he never modified his other 325 (Miami) or 1996 (Rose,Morris) guitars to have that same pickup wiring. ' 'There are few topics that hold the attention of avid Beatle fans more than the guitars played by the Fab Four in general, and by John Lennon in specific. His adopting of the 325 Rickenbacker and his eventual refinishing to black has sent many an enthusiast on the hunt for the reasons underlying this change. Whatever the reason, no single guitar at that time had the impact of Lennon's black 325. The reasons for its change in color are not known, however, the most realistic explanation is probably Lennon's pension for the unusual and different. The Cuban footwear, the leather hat, the long beard, the Lennon spectacles, the purple shirts and the shaved head are but a few examples of his trend setting ways. So why should his guitar be any different? Jim Burns, of Burn's Guitar fame, is credited with the finishing. The 325 in its natural finish is portrayed in a photo of the Beatles rehearsing at the Cavern in October 1962. The first photo of Lennon with the 325 with black finish was taken on December 31, 1962 at their last performance at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany. So the refinishing of Lennon's instrument was sometime between October and mid December 1962. 'George Harrison's Rickenbacker 425 ' The second Beatle to get himself a Rickenbacker was George Harrison. In September 1963 he bought a Jetglo model 425, while visiting his sister Louise in Benton, Illinois. In a letter I have received from her she confirms that George bought this guitar in a music store in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Mr. Bill Beatty, who owns the music store "Beatty´s" in West City near Benton, Illinois recalls this event and is able to confirm that he spoke with the two men who sold George his Rickenbacker. The store was Fentons Music Store in Mount Vernon, Illinois, and the man who claims to have been the one to sell it was "Tiny" Len Wymette. This instrument never became George´s favorite. He only used it for a short time. He can be seen using the guitar in "Ready Steady Go", a TV-show broadcasted on October 4 1963